


Hours in Flowers

by donghyuckssunflower



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Flowers, Fluff, Happy Ending, Language of Flowers, M/M, dreamies are all friends, i'll update the tags as i go along, slight swearing/taboo language
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-18
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-04-24 17:57:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14360643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/donghyuckssunflower/pseuds/donghyuckssunflower
Summary: Donghyuck gets given a flower every hour but he doesn't know who they're from.He's not complaining, just confused.





	1. lisianthus - affection

**Author's Note:**

> I'm quite busy at the moment and I shouldn't really be trying to write a fic but I've had this idea for a little while now and I wanted to get it kick started, and what better way is there to motivate yourself to write than to just post it and see what happens?? I'll try to update regularly - I have a vague plan for how this fic will turn out, but we'll see how much I actually stick to it and what the end result is. And if any of the flower meanings are wrong/weird seeming then I apologise - I'm kind of relying on Wikipedia because I have no idea about flower meanings. Also shout out to my friend, Jed, who unknowingly inspired this fic and it's title, kind of. 
> 
> Sooooo  
> To make this easy: Mark's in his last year of college/high school, the 00 liners are in their second last year and Chen Le and Jisung are in the year below that (third last year)
> 
> Anyway, I love Markhyuck, you love markhyuck, we all love markhyuck, so let's begin!

Just like every Friday morning, Donghyuck is sat in the library with his head resting in his left hand bent over a booklet, eyes skimming the page with a highlighter at the ready. It was routine for him by now, halfway into the school year.

It wasn’t like he wanted to be in school this early; barely anyone was around and no matter how much he tried not to, he couldn’t help but stifle a yawn. The twelfth one this morning, not that he was counting.

Why was he hunched over and working at ass o’clock in the morning at school, when he could be lying in bed, wrapped up warm and sleeping like his friends and every other sane person?

Because shitty bus times.

For reasons unknown to himself, his parents had decided to live in a house in such an obscure part of town that only one bus went to his school from his house and it had a stupid timetable that meant that the buses only ran every hour at the time he needed to get to school; if he got the later one then he’d be guaranteed to be late.

There had been some occasions where he had managed to guilt trip Mark into picking him up for school, since the elder was the only one out of his friends who had a car and was old enough to drive, but most of the time he had to endure the torturous bus times.

So really, he had no choice other than to suck it up and kiss goodbye to his lie-ins. Yes, Donghyuck may sometimes be a little bitter at the fact that his friends were still asleep while he was scribbling green lines across his page in highlighter pen.

 But at least all this extra revision would hopefully pay off at the end of the year when exams rolled around. He was a decent student after all and although he tried not to show it too much, he was a little smug about his levels. He’d worked hard to attain them so why shouldn’t he be a little proud?

Ruffling his orange hair (not ginger! No matter what Jaemin might say…) with his hand, he frowned at the work set out on the desk before him. He was about to yawn again when he heard footsteps behind him, approaching.

Normally he was entirely alone at this time except for the company of the librarian but she never usually bothered him. She’s always huffing and tutting at the state of the bookshelves or the lack of respect students seem to have for the magazine section. Truthfully Donghyuck found her a bit intimidating, not that he would ever admit that to anyone.

In fact, Donghyuck has a sneaking suspicion that she resented him for something. He has no idea what for though and he’s never exactly stopped to ask. Though there was that one time where he’d accidentally set fire to one of the textbooks in the library, sending the fire alarms off across the whole campus in a panicked frenzy, but he stubbornly sticks to the story that was Jeno’s fault, not his…

Needless to say, Donghyuck was entirely surprised by the footsteps which presented a sleepy looking Chenle.

The blonde boy was a year younger than Donghyuck placing him in the year below at school. It sometimes made their friendship a bit awkward to coordinate around their separate classes and different workloads, but they’d try to frequently meet up with the others in their friendship group outside of school, making it work regardless of their age gap.

They’d first ran into each other on the corridors when Donghyuck found the boy sat in the corner of a corridor with tear stained cheeks, sniffling quietly. Concerned, Donghyuck slid down the wall to sit next to him, quietly wrapping his arm around the boy he’d never met before.

Eventually Donghyuck had coaxed the reason for his tears out of the vulnerable boy and discovered them to be the fault of some older students, who had bullied the boy for his accent and poor Korean.

In Donghyuck’s opinion there was absolutely nothing wrong with the boy’s Korean. In fact, it was exceptional considering how little time the boy had spent in the country, learning the language. Donghyuck told the boy as much and elicited a small smile from him which in turn made Donghyuck smile, because at least he'd stopped crying now.

“I could go find those guys and give them a piece of my mind, if you wanted.” Donghyuck had offered.

The blonde looked at him sceptically, probably thinking at the time that Donghyuck wouldn’t dare, but after knowing him for as long as he had now, Chenle knows Donghyuck undoubtedly would have sassed those guys so much they wouldn’t have known what had hit them for messing with one of his friends.

Donghyuck always was fiercely protective over his friends.

From that day on, Chenle had started seeing Donghyuck more often, assuming it was coincidence (Donghyuck was secretly checking up on the small Chinese boy, ensuring other people left him alone. He even went so far as to drag Mark around the corridors on their breaks with him sometimes ‘to make it seem more natural’ when they bumped into the younger boy,) until Donghyuck had just decided to invite him to sit with him and his friends at lunch times.

(Mark suggested it to Donghyuck, actually, but the elder let Donghyuck take the credit for the idea.)

Chenle started eating with them on a regular basis and was introduced to Donghyuck’s friends (Mark – who he already knew from the corridor stalking – Jeno, Jaemin, and sometimes Renjun would join them – Chenle was especially excited to have someone to talk to in Chinese, so Donghyuck made sure to invite (read: force) Renjun to have lunch with them more often). At some point Jisung, a boy from Chenle’s classes joined them, following Chenle everywhere and anywhere making him naturally slot into their little group.

 Usually Chenle was as happy go lucky as a camel in an oasis but stood in front of Donghyuck, the Chinese boy looked a tad peeved, though Donghyuck had no idea why.

Actually he had no idea why the boy was here at all, let alone why he was somewhat ruffled looking.

Maybe he was just tired. Donghyuck didn’t blame him.

“Hyung,” Chenle greeted with a swift nod of his head, his blonde hair bouncing with the movement, plopping something upon the desk in front of Donghyuck.

Upon further inspection, Donghyuck realised it was a flower.

Why the hell there was a flower, he didn’t know.

He was about to say as much to the younger boy in front of him but before he had a chance, the blonde supplied the information. “A flower,” he giggled looking pointedly at the object placed on the table between them. “For you, from a secret someone~!” He sang the sentence with a grin on his face.

“What the hell?” Donghyuck stared blankly, entirely confused by the whole situation. He didn’t have any secret someone’s as far as he was aware.

Then again, that was the point of a secret someone: they were secret.

“Someone liiikes you,” Chenle responded, still grinning and still singing. Donghyuck noted the young boy was eerily chirpy for someone who always claimed they weren’t a morning person.

“Who?”  Donghyuck asked, purely perplexed. He leaned backwards in his chair and stretched his legs out beneath the table, closing his eyes and sighing at the satisfying feeling of moving his limbs that had been cramped in the same position for about half an hour now.

The blonde rolled his eyes at him. “That would ruin the secret part now, wouldn’t it?”

Donghyuck scowled in response.

“Well,” the Chinese boy dragged the word out in a high pitched tone, tapping his hand on Donghyuck’s table, “I’ll be off now; things to do, secret people to meet…” he sniggered not so discreetly behind his hand.

“Hang on a second-” Donghyuck wanted to ask more but before he could Chenle was already skipping away, the snigger turning into full blown laughing – his signature dolphin laugh – and ignoring the glares he was receiving from the librarian. “Idiot,” the seated boy murmured to himself, glaring at the door Chenle had walked through to leave.

He boy was like a blonde whirlwind of laughter and unexpectedness and it was a little bit much for Donghyuck to process at eight in the morning.

Donghyuck blinked and shook his head a little, as if he was trying to manually clean it out and focus a bit better. He turned and stared, baffled by the flower.

It was really pretty; the delicate purple petals were dark and deep in colour and although he had no specific knowledge on flowers, they always made Donghyuck smile to himself.

The gesture alone was a nice one, even if he had no idea why someone had given him the flower.

Carefully picking it up from the desk so that he didn’t squash the petals or damage the stalk, he noticed a small tag tied to the stem, just below where the petals and stem met. The writing was small and neat – neater than Donghyuck’s at least – and read: ‘ _lisianthus – affection’._

“Affection,” Donghyuck mouthed the word out to himself, “strange.”

Who on earth would send him a flower at – he leaned back on his chair to check the clock on the wall behind him – exactly 8am? Barely anyone is usually at school at this time: just some staff and stray students, like Donghyuck. Chenle was definitely never around, that was for sure. So why was he here this morning and why did he bring a flower?

Donghyuck could at least piece together that Chenle wasn’t the one who bought the flower to give him: the Chinese boy had said as much to him when he delivered it. But that was pretty much all the boy had said: no name was given, no real hints at who it could have been.

Maybe he was just having some weird lucid dream and he’d wake up and catch his bus soon, but Donghyuck knows that’s not true. He vividly remembers waking up this morning and brushing his teeth and leaving his house. He remembers it all – even the disgruntled glare his cat gave him as he slammed the front door closed to walk to the bus stop.

Which left Donghyuck with no more ideas about the uncustomary delivery; he was clueless.

He’d never known anyone had a crush on him – he had a crush, sure, but nobody had one on him, to his knowledge at least. And with one of his best friends being Jaemin, the school’s resident gossip, Donghyuck would know.

Maybe it was Jaemin playing a prank on him, or one of his other friends. Still, Donghyuck sensed that that wasn’t the case, either.

Another thing he found strange was that the flower had been delivered at 8am – no one should have known he would be at the library at that time, unless one of his friends had told whoever it was. And why deliver it at 8am? Why not wait until 9am when the school officially started, or at lunchtime? It would have been far more convenient for whoever it was that gave it to him.

 _Oh well_ , Donghyuck thought to himself, _that’s their problem._

Pushing the flower to the end of his desk and the edge of his mind, Donghyuck decided to resume working and ask Jaemin or Jeno later – surely at least one of them would know.

Attempting to push the thoughts of the flower out of his head proved fruitless because Donghyuck couldn’t help but glance at the offending object and smile every time to himself. He really wished school would start soon so he could go about his normal daily routine without this distracting him.

In any case it was most certainly a lovely gesture, even if he didn’t know just yet who to thank for the gesture.

It was always nice to feel appreciated.


	2. amaryllis - splendid beauty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, I was right about being busy and wrong about trying to update regularly but we'll just pretend I'm not posting the second chapter of this almost a month and a half after chapter one and everything will be easy breezy.  
> I'm off college now though and exams are over so I should have more time to write (as long as I don't get called into work all the time).
> 
> Also if my writing seems jumpy/has weird transitions/doesn't flow well (especially between chapters) then I apologise but this is my first time trying to write a relatively long fic and I'm not used to navigating chapters and stuff so please bear with me :) 
> 
> I haven't proofread because I'm tired and can't be bothered tonight - I'll try do it tomorrow so until then if there's any mistakes please ignore them.
> 
> Anywayyy, here's chapter 2!

When the time for first period to start rolled around Donghyuck packed up his things and headed to the classroom he was due to occupy. He got to his desk at 8:56am according to his phone leaving him with a few minutes to spare before the lesson officially started.

With that in mind Donghyuck leisurely unpacked his things; pencil case, folder, text book, chewing gum.

He was especially careful not to crush the lisianthus flower he had gingerly placed in his bag, resting it at the top so it wouldn’t be damaged by his other belongings.

Lining the equipment up on his desk and popping a piece of gum in his mouth, he glanced across at the clock on the wall next to the whiteboard. 9:00am. The teacher waddled into the room right on time, like always, and turned his back to the class as he clicked at a few things on his computer.

To say Donghyuck and this teacher got along well would be the overstatement of the millennium: Donghyuck couldn’t stand the stout man and he was certain the teacher didn’t like him a great deal either. They just sort of had to put up with each other until the blessed time of graduation rolled around to set the orange haired boy free from his personal hell of the education system.

Donghyuck heard a cough behind him – one of those _I’m coughing to get your attention_ type coughs, not an _I’m coughing an actual cough because I need to cough_ cough. Spinning around in his seat he finds himself face to face with Renjun who reached over to thrust something in Donghyuck’s face with a smug sounding “who knew _you_ ’d have a secret admirer?”

A bit taken aback by the proffered plant Donghyuck took the stem of the flower from Renjun and was about to snap back a snarky reply – and interrogate the boy on who gave him the flower to deliver – but the teacher clapped his hands together to signal the lesson’s start.

 _Of course he would choose_ now _to start the lesson_.

Donghyuck wanted to curse.

(It was a feeling that occurred more frequently than not to him at school.)

He wanted to ignore the teacher and proceed with his questions for Renjun but after a small debate in his head, Donghyuck decided that would be unwise. He was already not favoured by this teacher and he knew the man had a tendency to dish out detentions liberally to those he disliked.

Donghyuck of all people would know, being the one to mostly receive those detentions for the smallest of things, like that one time he accidentally dropped his pen during a silent test and got blamed ‘ _for doing it to purposefully distract the other students’._

Donghyuck had ranted about that incident for days to Mark, venting his anger to the only person who would patiently listen. 

He’d tried grumbling to Jeno about it but he’d just walked away after the first hour of complaints and Jaemin didn’t even bother to try to last that long: he just told Donghyuck to just shut up after the first ten minutes, plain and simple.

Eventually Donghyuck’s rage died down over the incident but to this day he still can’t stand the man, especially since that wasn't the only occasion he felt personally targeted by the teacher.

In fact, he’d love to punch the man square in the face for being such a dick to him all of the time, but he knows that’s entirely unreasonable if he doesn’t want to get excluded or something. Something told him assaulting a teacher would not end in just a detention.

So with no other choice Donghyuck forced himself to turn around and face the front of the class, to focus as best as he could on the lesson and wait until the end to corner Renjun and get some answers out of him.  He would just have to ignore how intense the nagging feeling of questions was in his mind.

Again he was hit with unanswered thoughts like who gave him the flower? Why him? What did this flower mean?

Donghyuck placed the flower at the edge of his desk: since the lesson had started he couldn’t put it in his bag. Not without attracting unwanted attention from those around him and, contrary to popular belief, Donghyuck doesn’t actually crave attention from every single person on the planet all of the time. Sure he likes to mess around and entertain his friends which often puts a spotlight on him, especially because of his loudness and brash nature around those he’s comfortable with, but he doesn’t do it for the attention of others.

A flower sitting on his desk draws some attention from those closest to him but even more of his classmates would be staring if he started slinging his bag onto his desk and unzipping it in the otherwise silent classroom. The excessive movement would be bound to draw his teacher’s attention at the very least.

Instead, he ignores the quizzical glances sent his way by a few of his surrounding classmates, trying not to let his cheeks heat up under their assumptious eyes.

The little label on the stalk of the flower is blaringly obvious to Donghyuck’s eyes but the side with the writing on was facing away from him, so he couldn’t read what it said. At least not without picking the flower up and he was sure his teacher wouldn’t appreciate him waving a flower around during class.

Donghyuck thinks back to the flower already sat resting in his bag; affection, it had meant.

The delicate label on this new flower was so tempting to the boy; all he had to do was flip it over and he could see what this flower meant. Maybe it would offer a clue as to who gave the flower to Renjun to deliver it to him?

He’d already pieced together from his limited information that the flower wasn’t originally from Renjun: the Chinese boy was hardly the type of person to go around giving out flowers randomly. Especially not to Donghyuck and especially not with labels like ‘ _affection’_ on them. Sure he and Renjun were friends but not ‘ _affectionate’_ friends. Nope.

At least Donghyuck could rule two people out as the senders of the flowers: it wasn’t Chenle and it wasn’t Renjun. That only left the rest of his school year – the rest of the whole school, realistically – as possible suspects.

All in all, in the grand scheme of things, ruling out Renjun and Chenle was pretty much useless in finding out who could be the sender of the flowers.

Looking at the one on the edge of his desk, Donghyuck wished he knew what type flower it was and what it meant but all he knew about it was that it was red. It also had trumpet shaped petals but honestly, Donghyuck’s descriptive ability was limited to that because he wasn’t a florist and didn’t study flowers in his spare time.

Sure he thought they were pretty, and more often than not they smelled nice, but that was the extent of his flower knowledge.

He’d always been curious about flower meanings and the language of flowers but he didn’t exactly go leafing (pun fully intended) through piles of web pages and encyclopaedias to memorise flower names and meanings.

Instead he had schoolwork to fill his mind and friends to fill his time.

Speaking of schoolwork, he could feel a glare from someone, rudely snapping him out of his thoughts. Looking up to find the culprit, Donghyuck gulped as he realised it was the teacher.

Clearly the thoughts of unknown flower senders had distracted him for longer than he anticipated: they were already ten minutes into the lesson and all he’d done was stare blankly at the flower perched on the edge of his desk. He hadn’t even opened his textbook to the right page or uncapped his pen.

Whoops.

In a way he was glad – he wasn’t planning on paying a great deal of attention to the lesson anyway: he hated it so why bother, right?

Maths was his weak point and he was fed up of trying and getting the wrong answers, every single time. It wasn’t exactly like his teacher was all that concerned with helping him either; he just sighed if Donghyuck didn’t understand the question or got the wrong answer. And that was on his good days. On his worse days, well… Donghyuck dreaded those.

Really, his plan had been to just show up to the lesson, get his attendance mark, daydream, doodle a bit in his notebook’s margin, hope he didn’t get asked any questions and that it was just a lesson where they were told to go through a chapter of the textbook independently, maybe ask to go to the toilet to waste some extra time, daydream again and then leave as soon as the lesson ended.

Somewhere in the back of his subconscious he knew he should try in the lesson even if it was hard, but Donghyuck had long since given up on that. He’d probably just end up going home and try to teach himself. Like always that series of events would end in him just calling Mark over to help him since he was in the year above him, had already done the test and got an A, because he’s Mark Lee and he excels in everything he does.

(And that way he had an excuse to get Mark to come over to his house after school, not that he would admit that to Mark himself.)

The teacher must have asked him a question because he was staring intently at him, expectant of some kind of answer which he certainly wasn’t getting from Donghyuck because the boy hadn’t a clue what he was supposed to answer.

He hadn’t heard the question and was extremely reluctant to ask him to repeat it.

His mother always said he was terrible at concealing his emotions but it wasn’t his fault…he must just have overly active facial muscles or something.

At least that was what he always tried to reason to himself and anyone who mentioned it to him.

Anyway, his face must have betrayed his cluelessness because the teacher sighed, “Donghyuck, I’m hoping you would bless me with your attention for just _one_ minute if possible.” A snigger came from behind him and Donghyuck made a mental note to kick Renjun in the shins at lunchtime. “I asked you what the answer to question three on the board was, do you know?”

“No sir,” Donghyuck mumbled, looking down at his desk, scrutinising the pencil marks on the grain and the small dent in the top right corner.  Basically, he was doing anything to avoid the pressuring eyes of his maths teacher.

Truthfully Donghyuck hadn’t understood anything in this class since the start of term (even with Mark’s tutelage – they always got distracted and ended up talking about random stuff with snacks sprawled between them on the floor of Donghyuck’s bedroom, maths books long forgotten) so even if he looked at question three he was sure he wouldn’t be able to get the right answer anyway, but he couldn’t exactly say that to his teacher.

“Clearly your head is somewhere else at the moment,” the stout man pursed his lips. Donghyuck took the opportunity to pray to God that the man wouldn’t mention the flower and would just leave him the hell alone. He wasn’t in the mood for maths and he most certainly wasn’t in the mood to be dealing with this man’s bullshit. “I don’t suppose it has something to do with the flower on your desk, does it?” _Screw you too, God, fat lot of help you were._ The balding man’s tone was suggestive and cruel and Donghyuck knew what was going to happen even before he could respond or say anything to stop it.

“Maybe you should tell us all where you got a flower in the first place, and why you’re zoning out in my class when exams are only seven weeks away.” He punctuated his blow with a sharp jab of his finger at the whiteboard which had a big fat **7** plastered under the heading ‘countdown until exam’. It was as if he wrote the countdown just to scare his students into learning.

Maybe it worked with the other students but at this point Donghyuck was numb to learning maths; he just didn’t care at all. Give him seven weeks or seventy weeks – he was sure he’d still be just as rubbish at the subject.

Donghyuck’s mind was racing. There was no way he wanted to tell his teacher and his entire algebra class why he had a flower and he most certainly wasn’t going to mention thinking about what said flower could mean.

The cogs in his brain turned as he calculated his response, trying to side step the question but he couldn’t _not_ answer because he had the whole class’ attention now. “Renjun gave it to me,” Donghyuck said, immediately feeling a kick to the back of his chair which no one else seemed to notice.

By saying it was Renjun who gave the flower, Donghyuck was hoping to achieve two things: to redirect the attention of the class and his teacher away from him and to find out who had gave Renjun the flower in the first place.

Then Donghyuck wouldn’t be the subject of his teacher’s wrath and he would know who sent both flowers.

Naturally he would have preferred to find out who gave them to him in private, or from one of his friends _without_ twenty or so other students and an algebra teacher knowing too. But beggars can’t be choosers, he supposed. This way, even if the class knew the original sender, they wouldn’t know the true reason he had been sent them because nobody seemed to have noticed the label attached to the stalk.

As long as Renjun kept his mouth shut about _why_ Donghyuck was given the flower and instead only mentioned _who_ gave him the flower, things should be fine.

He turned in his seat to face Renjun, sending him a small satisfied smirk.

The older boy narrowed his eyes at Donghyuck in distaste before his features snapped into a confused look so fast that Donghyuck wondered if he would get whiplash by watching it.

The Chinese boy tipped his head to the side a little going all in with his confused act. “I don’t know what he means, sir.” Renjun glanced at Donghyuck then back at the teacher, “I haven’t seen that flower before this lesson, sir, when Donghyuck brought it in with him. He’s lying.”

Donghyuck was going to strangle the boy.

How dare he act like he didn’t just give the flower to him? Why the hell would Donghyuck lie about something like that, anyway? The orange haired boy was fuming, ready to open his mouth and hiss his demands for an explanation from Renjun.

“Donghyuck, put your flower somewhere out of my sight and next time I ask you a question you had better have the right answer. In the future I suggest you don’t lie or disrupt my lesson or else I’ll have to give you a detention.” The middle aged man was scowling, matching Donghyuck’s own facial expression.

(Truthfully, Donghyuck’s death glare was a little bit better, but that came with years of practice.)

Sulking at the unfairness of the teacher and fuming at Renjun, he hauled his bag on the desk (wary not to crush the flower, but violently smacking the rest of the things on the slab of wood to make a clear statement to the teacher and class) and opened it.

But instead of putting the flower in like his teacher assumed, he stuffed his book and pencil case inside (also being careful not to squish the flower already habituating the inside his bag!).

With a dramatic thrust he shoved the chair out of his way, grabbed the flower from his desk and stalked out of the classroom ignoring the outraged shouts of the teacher and saying nothing in response.

His words would be wasted on the man and used against him later, no doubt.  

Donghyuck was entirely done with maths and that stupid git of a teacher – it would take a lot of coaxing and bribery to get him to even consider going back to that class again anytime soon.

He felt tears prick at the corner of his eyes: he’d always been an angry crier and at times like these he really hated it. Why was he going to cry anyway? It’s not like this was his first time being angry at a teacher after being shouted at (he usually found himself victim of teachers’ rude comments, just because he talked a lot in a fair few of his lessons), nor was it his first time walking out of a classroom after having a disagreement with the teacher.

“Stupid prick,” Donghyuck muttered under his breath as he roamed through the corridors with nowhere to go. He rubbed the corner of his eyes with the hand not occupied by a flower, breathing shakily in an attempt to regain control over his tear ducts.

He didn’t really know where to go now.

Definitely not back to class, that was for sure. He had about forty minutes until his next class though, and students weren’t allowed off campus. Not that that had stopped him before, but today he didn’t fancy sneaking away – even if he did he still had no place in particular to go and no one to go with which left him in a listless position.

Maybe he could see if the cafeteria was open?

He could do with a place to sit down and think a bit; clear his head.

With one last deep breath he span on his heels in the empty corridor and headed in the direction of the campus’ café. Blissfully it was fairly quiet because it was first period and most students were in class

 A few people were scattered around the room, sat in pairs or alone – some worked, other scrolled restlessly through their phones.

Donghyuck mentally calculated how much of his lunch money he could spare on a drink as he approached the counter. The person at the counter was familiar to Donghyuck and smiled as he approached.

“Hi Hyuck,” Johnny the barista smiled warmly. Johnny was one of the few staff members at school Donghyuck actually liked and got along well with.

“Hey,” Donghyuck greeted lightly, “could I have a small iced Americano, please?”

Johnny nodded, “sure thing. Hey, aren’t you supposed to be in lessons right now?” Johnny normally chats to Donghyuck as he worked and although the latter would usually enjoy the conversations, today he didn’t want to have to answer questions.

He responded by humming in a noncommittal way, hoping the older boy would take the hint.

Apparently he had because he measured out the drink’s ingredients humming along to the small radio on top of the counter instead of saying anything else to his customer. Handing over the drink with a brief flash of his smile, Johnny took the change from Donghyuck’s other outstretched palm.

Just as Donghyuck was about to turn away to find a table, Johnny nodded his head towards the younger boy’s left hand, with a comment of “I like your flower,” before turning away and sauntering into the back room of the café.

Donghyuck flushed.

He’d forgotten he was still grasping the stem of the second flower and had carried it in his hand all the way from his algebra classroom.

Walking quickly to an unoccupied booth the boy slid into the seat and placed the flower upon the table, beside his coffee. Shrugging his bag from his shoulders he propped it up on the chair next to him. He pulled the first flower – the lisianthus – out of his bag and set it next to the other flower. Seeing them both side by side made Donghyuck’s stomach do a weird little jig.

The flower’s label was still attached to the stem and Donghyuck was eager (albeit a little nervous for some reason – he wasn’t really sure why) to find out the name – and meaning – of the flower that had caused him so much trouble and made him abandon a class.

He inhaled and flipped the label over in a brisk movement so that the written words were visible.

_Amaryllis: Splendid Beauty_

Donghyuck felt a tentative blush cross his face, accompanied by the beginnings of a smile. Did this mean that the person who gave him the flower thought he was beautiful?

Not just beautiful, actually, but _splendidly beautiful_?

Donghyuck had never thought of himself as beautiful; okay looking yes, but he wasn’t anything special. There were plenty of other people who were better looking than he was; he was as plain as a cardboard box in comparison to someone like Jaemin, say, or Jeno – even Mark.

But the person who gifted him this flower seemed to think otherwise; they thought he was _splendidly beautiful_ , if his interpretations of the flower were correct.

Donghyuck felt his self confidence boost up a few levels, making him sit a little straighter in the seat of the booth he’d chosen to occupy.

A timid blush graced his cheeks.

Whoever the sender of these flowers was sure knew how to compliment him. Donghyuck would thank them for it, _if he knew who it was_. He needed to hatch some kind of plan to figure out who the mysterious ‘admirer’, as Renjun put it, was.

Thinking about it, he didn’t really have many ideas of how to do that other than corner Renjun or Chenle and force the answer out of them somehow – blackmail, maybe? That was probably going a bit far Donghyuck would admit, but this whole not knowing business was really starting to tick him off.

If someone liked him then he wanted to know who it was.

But what if it was someone he didn’t like back? That would be a bit awkward. Sure he really loved this entire flower note giving thing, but in the long run he had the complication of that crush he’d been harbouring for a certain someone for years.

Jaemin always bugged him about getting round to telling the person he liked that he liked him, ever since he accidentally let slip to the younger boy that he had a crush. He was incessant in finding out who it was and when Donghyuck let it slip one day after school, he never heard the end of Jaemin’s squeals and demands for Donghyuck to confess.  

Donghyuck had always refused – and still continues to refuse – to confess because he worries it would ruin their already forged friendship and the last thing he wants is for the boy he’s pretty much sure he’s in love (as much as any teenager can be convinced they’re in love, without actually dating said person they believe themselves to be in love with) with to reject him and then refuse to be his friend any more because their relationship would be weird and awkward after a failed confession.

Which leaves Donghyuck to wonder.

If push came to shove, would he really give up on said crush for whoever was giving him these flower messages? He wasn’t sure.

After all, he’d had a crush on Mark Lee since the boy had first moved from Canada to Korea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaand this chapter was as far as I'd (kind of) planned so from now until the end it's going to be freestyle unless I pull together some sort of plan. Which I probably won't because I'm lazy and don't like planning, oh well. 
> 
> BUT next chapter I think I'll introduce Mark properly, not just through mentions so prepare for that! 
> 
> So yeah, it'll be interesting to see what my brain comes up with and I promise I'll try put out the next chapter asap and not after another month and a half :) :)
> 
> (also don't skip class kids!)


End file.
